Kokkoris Lab

Research focus

ERC Starting Grant · 2022

Nuclear cooperation and conflict across symbiotic fungal networks

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form one of the most widespread terrestrial symbiosis on earth with the roots of plants, known as mycorrhizal symbiosis. Multiple AMF connect with multiple plants simultaneously forming large underground common mycorrhizal networks (CMN) where carbon and nutrients are exchanged. In contrast to most organisms where a single cell carries a single nucleus, a single AMF cell holds thousands of nuclei. This mysterious multinucleate and clonal biology has generated open questions in evolutionary biology. First, AMF have been called “evolutionary scandals” for supposedly surviving millions of years without sex, contradicting the theory that lack of sex in…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.